REBEL Liberal-turned-independent MP Julia Banks and Victorian Liberal Party deputy leader Cindy McLeish headline a forum at Langwarrin this month designed to encourage more women to enter politics. The inaugural Louisa Dunkley Women in Politics Forum – organised by the Committee for Greater Frankston – is a 12-2pm lunch on Thursday 28 March at McClelland Gallery’s new Sarah and Baillieu Myer Education Pavilion. Moderator will be Frances Henke, author, photographer, artist, disability advocate and retired journalist and political campaigner who lives on the Mornington Peninsula.

Independent Julia Banks MP

Deputy leader of the Victorian Liberal party, Cindy McLeish MP

The committee’s chief executive Ginevra Hosking said public debate about the under-representation of women in politics had inspired the event. “Our two guest speakers will talk about their experiences in politics before we ask for questions from the audience.” She said there
would be opportunities before and after the forum for attendees to network with
the region’s women politicians, business and community leaders.

Committee chair
Fred Harrison said the committee would be sponsoring 10 female students from
secondary schools in Dunkley to attend the forum. “We hope they will gain more
of an insight into politics and become leaders of the future,” he said.

The catalyst for
recent public discussion about under-representation of women in politics was
Julie Bishop receiving just 11 votes during the Liberal Party leadership spill
last August, one vote for every year she had been deputy leader. Ms Bishop
announced last month she would retire from politics this year. Industrial
Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer announced her retirement a month earlier.

Last November,
Julia Banks told the Parliament she would leave the Liberal Party and become an
independent MP, saying there was an “entrenched anti-woman” bias. She said
there was “bullying and intimidation” of women in politics. In January, Ms
Banks announced she would challenge Greg Hunt, the Minister for Health and
Liberal MP for Flinders, a former colleague.

In contrast, in
Victoria last December, Cindy McLeish was elected Victorian Liberal Party
deputy, and Georgie Crozier voted the Libs’ deputy leader in the upper house.
And in a Victorian first, the Labor government re-elected late last year has 11
men and 11 women in its cabinet.

Ms Hosking said that for Australia to have more women politicians “we need to start grass-roots conversations, introduce more women to this career path and, importantly, continue to build informal networks that will empower the women who do represent us to be more effective”. She said it was an easy decision to name the forum after Louisa Dunkley. “Pioneering Australian women like Louisa Dunkley led the world in calling for equal pay for equal work. She was a highly competent Morse code telegraphist, the only way to communicate rapidly over long distances before telephones and two-way radios. The job was considered one of the first high-technology professions of the modern era, but women were paid much less than men. The politically volatile Frankston-based federal seat of Dunkley is named after her.”

Forum invitees include the Liberal MP for Dunkley, Chris Crewther, and his Labor opponent, Peta Murphy; state MPs from the region Sonya Kilkenny, Paul Edbrooke and Neale Burgess; and women councillors from Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula.For bookings, go to https://c4gf.com.au/events/Or look up “Events” on the Committee for Greater Frankston website.

A FORUM at Langwarrin will encourage more women to enter politics. The inaugural Louisa Dunkley Women in Politics Forum — hosted by advocacy group the Committee for Greater Frankston — will be held at McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park.

Committee chief Ginevra Hosking said public debate on the under-representation of women in politics had inspired the event. “Our guest speakers will talk about their
experiences in politics before we ask for questions from the audience,” she
said.

Federal Liberal-turned independent MP Julia Banks and Victorian Liberal Party deputy leader Cindy McLeish will speak at the forum. Ms Hosking said there would be
opportunities before and after the forum for attendees to network with the
region’s women politicians, business and community leaders.

Committee chair Fred Harrison said the committee would be sponsoring 10 female students from secondary schools in Dunkley to attend the forum. “We hope they will gain more of an insight into politics and become leaders of the future,” he said.

Ms Hosking said there needed to be grassroots conversations for Australia to have more women politicians. “We need to continue to build informal
networks that will empower the women who do represent us to be more effective,”
she said.

Former Liberal MP Julia Banks has spoken of the bullying and intimidation she endured as a female politician.

Speaking at an International Women’s Day breakfast, Banks, who controversially quit the Liberal Party in November last year and in January announced she would stand as an independent in the seat of Flinders, described the Liberal party room as “somewhere between Mad Men and House of Cards”. “They (Liberal leaders) wanted me to be a cliché, to say I’m leaving for family reasons. Scott Morrison wanted me to delay it. I said ‘No, I’m leaving now.’

“In their wisdom they wanted me out of the country, ‘we can take you away from all this, the whispering campaign’, the random people saying I was a liar and a bitch and the nasty one.

“The good cop was Scott Morrison saying we can offer you the United Nations role for three months. I said ‘I don’t want to go to New York’.” “I could almost see the thought bubble, which was something like ‘bloody woman’.”